Ooh, on that note, authorial fanfic gripe: ao3 has this habit of occasionally, erratically inserting spaces into my text when I paste it in. Usually it's about periods or other punctuation, so that the end of my sentences comes out like this . Or once in a while it's in the middle of words, so that in the dramatic part of the text, I make reference to a character's weapon, which is apparently now a fusion can non ;-; They don't show up in my original text, they don't show up when I paste it in, and they don't even always show up in the preview window on ao3. So now I'm in the habit of clicking post, and then frantically dashing back to sprint through the document looking for stray spaces. I can run searches for " ." or " ,", things like that, but spaces in the middle of words are harder to skim for, and apparently sometimes stray spaces show up for readers that don't show on my end at all! And the mid-word spaces are even more embarrassing than a typo, because someone might not know how to spell a word, but at least they can usually write the word as a SINGLE word. Good times.
Because this is such a relatively unusual mistake for a human to make, I don't see a lot of people thinking, gosh, this author doesn't know how words space! I read a lot of fic and have often thought oh, a misspelling, but never do I once recall thinking obviously incorrect mid-word spaces were a sign that the author is struggling with the word. I think I just assume it must be a formatting issue, which apparently it is, or if I'm feeling extra creative I might consider that they accidentally hit the space bar too soon.
Oh no, more like being a sign that I'm a sloppy editor! Which I... AM. To be fair. I don't usually need to go back and proofread, so I don't ever bother, first draft equals final copy, because delayed gratification is for losers. This just inserts errors I'm not responsible for that SCREAM that I never bothered to proofread the thing. Which I didn't. But this is fake evidence giving away my secrets that I should be able to get away with :V
Just throwing this out there, but as far as the random spaces before and after punctuation, I used to have that problem too, when I wrote in Google Docs. I've been able to fix it by copying my fic to a Word Doc and then moving it to AO3 from there. No idea about the spaces in the middle of words thing, though, that sounds terrible and I am sorry. ETA clarifying information & correct tense of a word (i'm awake really)
I never had issues with word proper, and at the moment, I'm suffering over in libreoffice :P In theory, soon I'm going to untangle my license situation and get back in a program I like. But as far as I've been able to tell, I thhhhhink at least some of my problems are coming from italics and such. Something about the way libreoffice does those interacts WEIRD with the ao3 side of things (or maybe it is weird all on its own), because once I port a thing over, it's like every formatting decision I ever thought about including is jammed into the html of the document. It's ridiculous, like there's a word and suddenly<em></em><em></em> and the sentence just continues on. With lots of others, that's the only html in there I can list off without looking at it. It definitely happens when I have an italics word at the end of a sentence and close out the italics before I hit period. But it still pops up even though I try to be careful, it happens with non-italics periods, and there are times like cannon/can non where it just makes no sense :P
Yeah, with Google Docs, it happens at the end of italics, too, but not inside of words. I think it must be something about how those programs apply italics vs. how Word does it, but I am not that proficient in HTML (I can format things on AO3, kinda, and that's it).
yeah, there is basically no time when i've pasted something into AO3 (from google docs, evernote, or nimbus note; i haven't used word in a long time so idk about that) that some kind of formatting fuckery doesn't happen. probably at least half of the editing i do when i'm about to post is fixing ao3's fuckups. adding extra spaces (sometimes in the form of extra <p></p>s) and being weird with italics are the usual ones. i usually end up combing through the html version to fix shit like that. this has made the 2 separate occasions where i've had to post using my ipad (because of a rapidly approaching exchange deadline) just... super fun. boy i love typing html shit on an ipad. it's my Big Favorite. /s ETA: got distracted by html ranting. forgot to say that i haven't yet encountered issues that ao3 won't show to me in preview, that sucks D:
a fanfic rated "explicit" and tagged "m/m", "anal sex" and "jon snow/samwell tarly"... that is also tagged "gay sex". like. yes. i think that was implied.
if its ao3, dont people tag every possible version of the tag so itll show up in more searches/be blacklisted out more easily?
Throwback to that time YOI Badfic Friend found a fic tagged... *searches thread* "#Viktor Nikiforov / Yuuri Katsuki #Yuuri Katsuki / Viktor Nikiforov #Yuri Katsuki / Viktor Nikiforov - Relationship #Viktor Nikiforov / Yuri Katsuki #Victor nikiforov / yuuri katsuki #Yuuri katsuki / Victor Nikiforov #victor nikiforov / yuri katsuki #Yuri katsuki / Victor Nikiforov #Viktor Nikiforov - Freeform #Yuuri Katsuki - Freeform #yuri katsuki - Freeform #victor nikiforov - Freeform #viktuuri #Vikturi #VictUuri #Victuri #lesbian #Gay #Homosexual Love #Gay Love #Yuri on Ice - Freeform #Yaoi #Gay Romance #Gay Sex #Gay Male Character #Canon Gay Character #Canon Gay Relationship." And both Yuuri and Victor listed twice in the character tags. (to this day it remains a mystery what "lesbian" was doing in there)
i have almost never seen "gay sex" tagged in fics that are also tagged m/m and explicit or mature on ao3. the people who do tag it seem to be exceptions rather than the rule.
